Sanders campaign: ‘DNC trying to help Clinton’ by barring database access

The presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders forcefully denounced the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday, accusing it of “actively acting to undermine our campaign" by barring it from a voter database after a breach enabled staff members to improperly access information compiled by rival Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"Clearly, in this case, they are trying to help the Clinton campaign," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said in an afternoon press conference.

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz responded by saying that once the committee became aware "that the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data," it directed its vendor to suspend the Sanders campaign’s access to the information.

She said the party would conduct an independent audit to assess the depth of the breach.

Some media outlets are reporting that a summary of computer logs shows four aides to the Sanders campaign accessed proprietary voter data compiled by Clinton's campaign, with the reports attributing the information to an anonymous person said to be familiar with the data logs and the breach.

Speaking from Washington, D.C. on Friday afternoon, Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, said documents about the breach had been “leaked all over town, most likely by the Clinton campaign.”

The Sanders campaign fired one staff member, Data Director Josh Uresky, but blamed NGP VAN, the vendor that runs the DNC's voter database, for making "serious errors."

NGP, which has provided software services for the DNC and most federal Democratic campaigns, was founded by Nathaniel Gross Pearlman. Pearlman served as chief technology officer in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. NGP merged with Voter Action Network, another election technology contractor, to form NGP VAN in 2010.

The DNC maintains an extensive list of voter information that it rents to campaigns, which in turn update it with their own data. The data allows campaigns to target likely voters and anticipate what issues might motivate them to support a candidate.

According to Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, this was not the first time the firewall had been down between the databases of the three major Democratic presidential campaigns — Clinton, Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. Weaver said the Sanders team had noticed in October that files accessed through the DNC contained proprietary information from all three presidential campaigns. He said the Sanders campaign assumed that Clinton and O’Malley staffers also had similar access, and quietly reported the problem to the national party.

“Our campaign notified the DNC. Our campaign did not run to the media,” Weaver said. He said that the committee assured him at the time that the problem would be fixed.

Weaver said that four members of the campaign had accessed the information, but that only the actions of Uresky had risen to the level of a fireable offense.

“We have very, very high ethical standards in this campaign,” he said. “Even the appearance [of impropriety] is too much.” Weaver added that they “don’t need dirty tricks” and “plan to beat Secretary Clinton on the issues.”

Uresky, in a phone interview with MSNBC, said he took full responsibility for his actions, but he also said there was no nefarious intent.

“We knew what we were doing was trackable [by the DNC], and were trying to create a record,” Uresky said. “We had to assume our data was exposed. We wanted to document and understand the extent of the problem.”

He said that his team never took “custodianship” of the data, and did not print or export it. He equated his actions to “finding your neighbor’s door open for the fifth time,” and “leaving a note inside the front door” saying it was open.

Uresky added that the campaign had provided similar documentation to the DNC after the October incident.

Friday afternoon, the Sanders campaign made good on an earlier threat and filed a federal lawsuit against the DNC [PDF], demanding the national committee restore access to their data. The campaign accuses the Democratic National Committee of breach of contract.

“The DNC has used this incident to shut down our ability to access our own data,” Weaver said. “This is information we have worked hard to attain.”

The DNC has given no indication of how long the Sanders campaign would be barred from the database.

The information could be crucial to the Sanders campaign's ability to identify and persuade voters in the kickoff February contests of Iowa and New Hampshire. Sanders’ focus on economic inequality and threats posed by climate change has resonated with an active portion of the Democratic electorate, but Clinton has maintained a lead in national polls and surveys of Iowa voters.

With the Associated Press